Thursday, May 23, 2013

After waiting nervously with the other victims in the unsettlingly clean and quiet holding area, I was led through a labyrinth of colorless walls and identical doors to a small white room which contained only a reclining chair, lit by a large overhead lamp and surrounded by an array of metal tools of varying shapes, sizes, and sharpness. I was instructed to lie down as the chief alien peered at me through ultra-magnification glasses. He and his assistant begin to force a plastic splint-like device between my jaws which connected to an air-sucking tube-- this was not about to be a pleasant experience. The aliens then proceeded to inject a mysterious substance into my gums, effectively numbing them. I squeezed my eyes shut, fluttering them open occasionally to glimpse a white-gloved hand grasping a sharp silvery tool. The instruments screamed like tea kettles as I felt the enamel of my teeth being roughly scraped away. Amidst this noise I could only understand a few words of their garbled alien speech; when I did not respond, they seized my head and jaw and moved it as they pleased.

The aliens had a strange fondness for Adele. A live performance of the singer was played three times during the procedure among several technical difficulties. Based on the approximate length of each song, I could judge that I had been laying in the chair for over two hours. It has to be over soon. What else do they want from me?

Soon enough, they released me back into the holding room, having performed the necessary operation. The left side of my face drooped from the numbing substance, leaving me dribbly and awkward for several hours.

CAVITIES SUCK. This was actually my second trip to the dentist this week, as I wanted to get each hole-ridden tooth filled before traveling this summer. As a result of the inability to clean my teeth during the two months in a splint, I had developed SO MANY CAVITIES. Chief Alien didn't tell me how many, but I guessed 8 or 9. Oh well, another unpleasant side effect of surgery. It could have been much worse: I apparently was dangerously close to needing a root canal.